Gucci power couple to leave brand

PARIS - Gucci's chief executive officer and creative director are leaving the global luxury brand, its parent company Kering said in a statement on Friday.

Patrizio di Marco, who has headed Gucci for six years, will leave as of January 1 and will be replaced by Marco Bizzarri, who served as chief executive of Bottega Veneta for more than five years before heading up Kering's Luxury Couture & Leather Goods Division in April.

Gucci creative director and Di Marco's partner, Frida Giannini who has been with the house for 12 years, will leave at the end of February, after showing her 2015 fall/winter collection. Her replacement has not yet been announced.

Rumours that Di Marco would be replaced at the helm of the global style powerhouse have swirled for months, as Gucci's sales have steadily slid since 2013.

The Italian brand is the prized jewel for Kering, the luxury goods holding company that owns brands like Bottega Veneta and Stella McCartney.

Gucci's new boss Bizzarri oversaw a "dramatic" increase of sales and profit during his time at the helm of Bottega Veneta from January 2009 to April 2014, when he was appointed to head up Kering's Couture and Leather Goods division.

"After successfully setting up Kering's 'Couture & Leather Goods' division in only a few months, I am fully confident that he will now build on Gucci's extraordinary legacy to have the 93-year-old house enter a new momentum and continue to write bright chapters of its exceptional history," said Kering chief Francois-Henri Pinault.